September 2, 2013

It was Nyad's fifth try to complete the approximately 110-mile swim. She tried three times in 2011 and 2012. Her first attempt was in 1978....

This time, she wore a full bodysuit, gloves, booties and a mask at night, when jellyfish rise to the surface.... She stopped from time to time for nourishment, but she never left the water.

The support team accompanying her had equipment that generated a faint electrical field around her, which was designed to keep sharks at bay. A boat also dragged a line in the water to help keep her on course.

Fully body suit, electric force field, an armada of attending vessels, a trail of breadcrumbs to follow...all she really did was the functional equivalent of swim 100 miles in a pool. Granted, a long swim, but really, a long swim is all it was.

Agree with Mad Man. OK, someone else did a "look at me!!" stunt that involved some gumption and skill.Why is it almost expected that people should be admiring and impressed???Some motorcyclist jumps over 11 "Monster Trucks" and this is put to the public for recognition as a great human endeavor? Then the one that risks his life jumping over 20 "MOnster Trucks"??

I mean, yes, swimming from Cuba to the USA is tough. But so is travelling from NYC to LA using nothing but a pogo stick. How does that better anyone save the publicity hound?

Austin: "Granted, a long swim, but really, a long swim is all it was."

This is Hard to Please Night at Althouse. This was a great athletic feat. I once swam 2.5 miles in Lake Erie. At age 15 not 64. Do that 39 more times in one event and I matched her. Indeed it is a long swim. Amazingly so.

Nyad had a pretty rough go of it early in life, to hear her tell it. And trust me, you don't want to hear her tell it, but you may get a chance once she recovers and ESPN gets to do an interview. If this is her crowning accomplishment in endurance swimming, and that helps her deal with the trauma she experienced 5 decades or more ago, great. It is an amazing thing to have accomplished, especially after running up against obstacles in prior attempts and then simply not giving up. I like that.

Oh, Archie, ah, let's just take it as a given that she already has a Subaru.

I saw that Diana Nyad finally completed her 110-mile Cuba to Key West swim, on her fifth attempt, at the age of 64. She first tried it back in 1978 and failed. She tried again three times in 2011 and 2012. So what does this have to do with the movie The World's End, which I saw over the weekend?

Well, the movie is about a man named Gary King who failed in his quest to complete the "Golden Mile" with his four friends when they graduated from school, a pub crawl through his home town that involved drinking a pint of beer in each of twelve pubs, the last of which was named The World's End. At the start of the movie, he recounts the epic events of that night when he and his mates tried the challenge but couldn't make it past pub #9. It clearly is evident that this was the greatest night of Gary's life and that nothing since has lived up to it, and that he feels that if he can get his friends together for another attempt and somehow complete the Golden Mile this time, then all of the things that are wrong with his life will be made right.

I think that there might be more than a little of that in Nyad's quest as well. It was almost equally pointless (hello, boats!) and certainly more strenuous. She would have been 29 years old in her first attempt back in 1978, young and in her physical prime, but still defeated by the conditions and hazards of her attempted swim. The more recent four attempts featured a woman more than twice that younger age, still apparently in good shape but no longer a spring chicken. Say this for Gary King; He did, finally, manage to complete his epic quest on the second try. It took Diana Nyad five.

Then again, there have been no repercussions from Nyad's success, unlike in the movie!

So she had an electric shark repellant doohickey instead of a cage? And a support team pacing her to pull her out of the water if she hit a problem, and a guideline to keep her from veering off towards the Bahamas?